


moon of faithfulness

by isonlyme



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Adult Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Depression, Drinking, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Male Slash, Mild Language, References to Drugs, Self-Harm, Soft Boy Hours, Soft Theo, Suicide Attempt, Suicide Notes, True Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension, ah yes "roomies" we all know folks, ah yes we love little popchyk and his decaying teeth, boreo, boris goes after amsterdam, i'm an infp i'm sorry, long internal monologue, me trying third person, my own little au where they are (mostly) happy, nonchalant suicide, old popper!, popper - Freeform, serious angst, soft, someone make theo eat, thank you for enduring this dumpster fire, thats the story, there, they deserve love, they have an apartment like the happy repressed closeted husbands they are, uh oh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28897233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isonlyme/pseuds/isonlyme
Summary: Where Boris ends up going to New York with Theo after Amsterdam. With him away on a last minute trip, Theo beings to circle back to the memories of Amsterdam without anyone there to help him out.
Relationships: James “Hobie” Hobart/Welton "Welty" Blackwell, Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky, boreo - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. verb, to await: to be in store for

**Author's Note:**

> song: all i need - radiohead 
> 
> \---
> 
> "What you approve the most is what afflicts  
> most sorely,  
> not being me but something I went through and  
> want not to resent.  
> These spates of words leave similar vacancies  
> when they've gone."
> 
> -David R. Slavitt

* * *

("I will be back before you know it. Do not look so downcast, _птица_!" Boris's parting words resounded within Theo the weeks proceeding his departure, after the bags had been packed and their apartment was now vacant; no longer filled with his partner's persistent chatter or his presence that could liven a room without Boris even trying). 

* * *

Even now, as another Monday approached, Theo found himself unable to rise from the comfort of his bed, wishing that he could only turn in the sheets and there he would be, Boris, right there beside him. A little shove against Theo's shoulder, a peck on his bare skin. _Wake up, Potter. Is time for work, or else, who will get the dough, eh? Or is it 'make the dough?'_

Theo was left with an unnerving sense of incredulity after the unexpected trip to Amsterdam—and for numerous reasons, during the stay itself. The entire living situation in that European hotel had popped into Theo's mind at random intervals; gloomy, constant overcast, the curtains closed at all hours, camel-hair coat damp and dripping, moord, bloedig, everything spiraling upwards in those blissful, lonesome hours spend staring at the stuccoed ceiling praying for death. But if not for Boris, Theo knew that he would have probably never woken up—his mother's mirrored reflection unmoving and eternally locked in place. Leaving Boris stranded, no parting letter, no ability for Theo to truly express the extent of what he had felt for the past seven years, what with his claws sunk so deep into Pippa that Theo had no other way to see what was right in front of him. 

Until now. 

The painting had been restored to its former glory, and uprooted Theo in the process: a piece of him had been extracted that Christmas day, only a month prior. The painting, the chain that had tethered him to his past so desperately from age thirteen on—gone. Saved. _It's in better hands,_ he told himself. Although it was a euphoric, selfish reassurance to him upon wondering if another bare hand had only touched the verso, knew every single dent and curve in the arresting sweep of brush strokes, the static energy in a palette knife: only Theo—was certain—had known these things, small details within the piece that only Fabritius himself would implicate, a touch of the master's hand.

The irony within their kindred lives: who would have known that the very thing that destroyed it's creator would potentially befall on itself? Another explosion, the accidental interwoven with the intentional. One separate and undefined without the other. 

Being thrust into the after—much like the painting itself—and having to clutch the fragments of former life, without it, without her.

He could not call Boris, it was a work trip—"Loose ends to tie! Then I swear, Potter, I am here! Yours!"—but Theo kept circling back to the nightstand where his Apple phone lay charging, fabricating excuses in which to text him, he had left without a returning date. An icy wave of nostalgia at this, _just like every time,_ that final day in Vegas, the agonizing isolation in Hobie's spare bedroom, the frigid night Theo had shot Martin: _okay, I won't say no._ All coming through the lenses blurred. Checking the phone was the only form of solace Theo could muster in the state he was in, without pacing their apartment, hands trembling with all other outside stimuli amplified and sharp. After Antwerp, Theo had swore sobriety, feeling as though those last precious moments dreaming of Audrey went undignified out of the context in which he saw her: overdose, addict, _is this really happening?_

But in a way the dream was the finality within Theo's grief. The last stop. _The Goldfinch_ removed, the ants beginning to panic when the trail is lost. He stumbled back to bed, having spent the majority of the morning brewing tea in a half-present daze—oolong, Boris's favorite. Staring into the murky amber contents of his cup, Theo was transported: perched on an used chair in Antwerp, Boris's flat, a steaming mug of coffee warming his frozen hands. The words on their tongues, unable to pass through their lips; knowing that once Theo returned to New York things would not settle back to its previous order, the tension between the two. Watching movies in his flat, the handfuls of silence thickening the tangible rift between Theo and Boris—the years of abandonment, the scrutinized distance of continents fogging in Theo's mind—and its weight suddenly holding no meaning when they turned to gaze in the light of the bedside lamp, all this time, with no barrier in front of them. Boris reaching to grab the cup from Theo's numbed hands: _here, Potter. You are shaking like mad, I help._

That sense of alienation, the desperate hum for normalcy that Theo had repressed his whole life. Roughened fingers knocking against his knuckles with affection. Too much to say—nothing left on his part, Boris having decided to return with him, after all, who would know—and not enough time for Theo to get the words out right in the tight-lipped, gripping emotional confrontations from those days in Antwerp. Everything recuperated, a parallel in the mirror. _Which was, of course, I love you._

It was always true, even after all those years. Without either having to express it firmly, draw a line in the sand, the two so acutely fastened into the other's outward form of language. Just like Vegas. Words within actions: an exalted sigh, the loving hand placed casual yet pointed on Theo's back while Boris made an animated call in Ukrainian to Gyuri, packing his backs for New York. _Packing his bags yet again to finish up business, staying, finally._

Theo was unsure about—and quite disturbed at the lack of—any context in which Boris had departed on: where he was, his other half, alone in his own foreign world, trying to set matters that would cut Boris off from any previous ties? ("To be able to retire, _moja miłość,_ now with all this moneys!") But even now he lay with his cooling tea, eyes fixed despondently at the sleek empty screen and wondering if Boris was to return at all. It was hopeless, if anything an irrational and immature compulsion. 

Boris was fond of impulsive behavior and leaving on abrupt terms: a time in which he left Theo breathless in a coffee shop, after a brief kiss on the forehead, exiting without reference to where he was intending to go. Hours later—Theo pacing the apartment and fuming, working himself up in his mind over the missed calls and excused absence—Boris unlocked the door with a look like that of a child getting caught doing something they should not. "Was only thinking of you! Was a gift!" Theo would muster up the ability to forgive his partner at these times, knowing all the same that Boris's driven and erratic nature was something Theo lacked in himself and was an attribute often adored in private, during nights spent awake and in each other's arms: nocturnal and ruminated. 

Constantly waiting. Even without the pettiest comfort of Popper at his bedside—at Hobie's, probably enjoying the solitude and workshop smells; rather than the cluttered, expensive and never-been-used furniture in their own apartment, Theo assumed—he fell back into the tunnel of self-deprecating thoughts that assaulted him whenever alone, chastising himself even for worrying; although, Theo was conclusive on the fact that it was wise of him to worry: without Boris, what then?


	2. noun, hope: a person or thing that may help or save someone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song : young - the paper kites 
> 
> -
> 
> "Nothing but vulnerable.  
> And all this is metaphor.  
> An ordinary hand—just lonely  
> for something to touch  
> that touches back."

Theo awoke from a fitful sleep—having never explaining the situation to Hobie, the bouts of depression and separation anxiety he was only beginning to realize were seasonal issues, what with Boris gone—to the bedroom filled with fuzzy, intermingled shades of grayscale: he had slept through the workday afternoon and it being quite late, the blinds pulled low but not enough so that Theo could avoid the cloudy night, the blank moonless sky. Rain pelted down in violent sheets on the windowpane, the main cause of Theo’s unrest; even after all these years in New York, he was still unable to sleep peacefully without the Las Vegas winds blowing all around him in adolescence, the stillness that filled all corners of the room. Not without a certain someone’s arms holding him close. 

A steady rap on the door flung Theo from the bed. He dashed towards the darkening kitchen, where the front door stood like a beacon: the cure for his aching muscles, the portal crossing between his ill dreams and the outside world. Illuminating whoever was behind it. 

“Boris?” Theo fussed with the second deadbolt, wishing that Boris hadn’t installed so many locks on the doorframe. (“For our safety, Potter. New York, who knows who could jump us?”). But it was not the pale, raven-haired man that Theo had prayed stood in the hallway, but his business partner: James Hobart. _Hobie_. 

Popper accompanied him, tethered to a pink leash—one that Boris had bought, making Theo uneasy in its ability to cause pedestrians to stare at the two in passing—and yipped out a hello, his clouded eyes boring into Theo’s face. 

Hobie inspected his hunkered appearance, and Theo immediately knew that he was drawn to his eyes darkened with fatigue, his tousled hair that had once been gelled perfectly in place but was now in different stages of disarray. The wrinkled suit Theo had put on the night before in hopes of cheering himself up; it did not work. Hobie glanced inside the apartment, seeing the immaculate countertops and pricey furniture in appalling contrast to Theo’s dishevelment. 

“You don’t look too well, Theo. Can I come in? Maybe fix you something to eat?” He said, more as a command than a request. Theo took a few steps back to allow the pair to enter, running a nervous hand down his sandy hair. Theo didn’t want Hobie here, although the man was homely and compassionate, he often was very perceptive, Hobie could get the most out of a conversation—or someone, causing them to spill the words waiting on the edge of their tongue—through a single piercing gaze. 

He unhooked Popper from the chain and let him wobble about the apartment—licking Theo’s pant leg in greeting before walking towards his mountain of blankets, a sad excuse for a dog bed—and turned to Theo once more when he did not reply. 

“I know you’re feeling under the weather, but does it to have to do with Boris leaving? Is that really why you aren’t coming to work?” Hobie pulled out two chairs by the island for them to sit. Although Theo didn’t want to endure Hobie’s startling accuracy when it came to what he was thinking, it was the least he could do for him—having missed a week of work on the basis of his “poor health.” 

Yet again Hobie struck the mark. It was exactly why Theo did not want to come to the shop, having no desire to deal with erratic customers and going through a constant stream of files and return addresses in trying to retrieve the Changelings Theo had sold as originals; rather pore over every detail of Boris’s features in his mind in case his memories were the last sight of his partner he’d ever see again, as impossible the line of thinking might be. 

Hobie shifted in the seat and spoke up again: “Listen, I know things are hard right now. But you have to keep going, Theo. It won’t be this way forever.” He set his hand atop Theo’s and willed him to meet his eyes. The signs of age were prevalent as ever: Hobie’s greying hair was losing its luster, the wrinkles that surrounded his eyes looked as though they were etched into his cheeks; but Hobie’s smile and warm, amber eyes were unchanged. Theo knew he only meant well. 

But did he not understand? If only he knew, Theo thought, how Boris can be. How often he would leave without notice or flake on a date. Or the danger his job can pertain. 

“You’re right. Thank you.” Theo grimaced at the formality in his reply, knowing deep down that the sooner he left, the quicker he was going to collapse back into the thoughts, the black mood that hung over the apartment like fog. 

“Do you want me to bring you anything? Food? There’s a good soup place that just opened up.” Hobie began to trail off and list different restaurants in the area; his mind always on the next meal.

  
Theo sneezed harshly—a surprise to himself, perhaps he truly was getting sick—and shook his head. “I’ll just take a benadryl and go to bed.” Go _back_ to bed, Theo thought.    


Hobie gave him a parting smile—inviting, letting him know that he’s just a phone call away—before shutting the apartment door. Theo hurried to fasten the locks again, spinning back to face the room with a weary sigh. Popchyk peered at him as he headed back to the master bedroom, like a ghost, downing a few drugstore sleeping pills and curling back into the sheets—not caring that it was almost eight or that Popper needed to be fed; Theo was encompassed in the empty space of his bed, the fading smells, _their_ bed. The only thought that stirred in his brain was the attempt to fill the emptiness, the immediate solution was that Boris wasn’t safe. The guilt that overcame him—it was Theo’s fault that Boris had to go in the first place, it was Theo’s fault that Martin was dead, it was Theo’s fault, period—was unshakable and cascaded in waves as he dozed off.   


* * *

_“It’s Badr al-Dine. Means something like, I am moon. The moon of faithfulness.”_ _A younger Boris, his pale face glowing in the nighttime light. Their bed, dreaming of the the year spent in Vegas and it was all flooding back. His accent struck a chord within Theo, stuck in his fifteen year old body, staring up at Boris with eyes lightened by the moon reflecting off his milky skin. In the dream, Theo was sure he had been on acid: the bedroom was swarming with a shifting sequence of refracting glass shards and sparkles, with every word Boris’s lips were dripping with glittering honey, almost. It was wonderful, a complete disregard to the reasons why Theo quit in the first place._

_“Boris, you look so..” Theo’s voice drifted away, lost in the physical tangibility in his words. He grinned a blinding smile and tossed his head back to laugh. The perceptible jut of his jawline, the angular glimmer. Back when they had lived off meager snacks and alcohol, over a decade ago. “What? Я уродливый?” Even in the dream Theo knew immediately what Boris was saying. He turned over on his side, facing Theo with one bony elbow propped against a pillow, the leather bracelets gathered at the thickest part of his forearm._   


_“Beautiful.” Theo was amazed by Boris’s features, drawn in the light and still as striking now as the sixteen year old boy lying next to him. Here Theo was, distant and ill-defined in comparison. Like the clouds obscuring the alluring night sky, hiding moonlight through the cracks of fingers._

_Boris’s dark eyes were close and Theo could see every one of his lashes spilling in light. His mouth was even closer, dazzling gems of color dancing off his face. But before Theo could lean in, close the space between them, the shades passed over the moon and Boris was gone. The vacant space was immense in proximity to Theo’s body. Just like that, gone. Dead. Zmarły._

_The scene shifted and Theo was thrust back to the parking garage but this time Martin’s gun was pressed to the side of Boris’s head. His dark curls framed his face and made the look of complete despair even more staggering: Run, Potter. Tears spilled down Boris’s face unannounced, Theo stood there with the painting in Martin’s grip holding no meaning when Boris was on the brink of death. The seconds holding his life were brief: Theo’s mind racing back to all of the times that he screwed him over—if only he had never met Boris at all, if the Barbours had loved him enough to adopt him all those years ago, if only he hadn’t been smoking those cigarettes, if Audrey had all but dismissed the entire notion of visiting the museum to begin with. Theo’s heart hammered in his chest, pounding out every ounce of blood he would have traded in an instant; kill him instead, take the painting, anything so that his moon, confidante in all things, the only person to brighten those dark days, could live._

_“Merry Christmas.” Martin said with a pursed, revolting smile. He fully faced Theo before his thumb squeezed the trigger._

* * *

Theo woke in a tangle of bedsheets constricted around his sweaty clothes—in a feverish haze, even though the house was chilly. He staggered upwards and tried to even his rapid heart rate, the image of Boris's agonized face engraved behind his eyes and the moments before the gun went off; the fading remnants of the dream vaulted into hyperdrive: the blood spattering everything, seeping deep into Theo's bones, his face and hair coated in it, in one instant all that was whole became undone, it now being irreplaceable and ceasing to exist. Theo tried to shake the dream off, convincing himself it was all his imagination—as real as the scene might have been, if Boris hadn't spit the cigarette's ashes onto his assailant's face seconds before—but the resonance of it was unshakable. What if Boris was risking his life out there, now? The trail of worry exhausted Theo, grasping out to all of the what-ifs and drawn conclusions: it was precisely his fault on a personal level, and Theo was certain this dream was a premonition that he was already gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> words//:
> 
> -Я уродливый? - am I ugly?  
> -Zmarły - deceased


	3. verb, to rescue: to keep from being lost or abandoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw//: self injury, suicidal ideation 
> 
> song: bye bye - state to state 
> 
> “Oh, no no no it was too cold always,  
> —I was much too far out all my life  
> and not waving but drowning.”
> 
> -Stevie Smith

He took his time in the writing—this was nothing like Amsterdam, even in his desperation he had time but Theo thought that maybe Hobie would find the letter, if Boris was still alive, perhaps find him—knowing that Boris deserved as much. How could he have not even thought of a letter, a note of acknowledgment for Boris only a month ago? When he was in the thickest confines of his mind, letting the desire to leave this world overtake him? Not even a mention of Boris? Theo reamed himself for the mere thought. This time—he was sure—was not going to follow down the same path. This letter was Theo’s consolation, filing it away in the numbered minutes left of his mind that he had at least written _something_. 

The pen wavered at _For Boris,_ with Theo having to swallow the lump of guilt at the base of his throat screaming to stop. He scribbled down all the things he could never express aloud, wincing as the pages increased in number and Theo’s legible handwriting diminished into incoherence. Only Boris would be able to read this, for more than one reason, he thought.   


Writing it down gave Theo's feelings a sense of physical legitimacy. To no longer repress the affection he felt for ages; he was agreeing with himself that he did in fact love him, the entire compulsive and emotion-driven mess that he was. How he had wished from the day they met in Las Vegas that the course of their friendship had taken an alternative route, one where Boris got in the taxi with Theo and gave him the chance to come clean; not having to wait until they were grown men and a failed suicide to do so. All of it set in ink, framed in creamy stationery with his initials printed in navy on each header. His glasses began to fog as he left himself cry—for the first time since Amsterdam—real tears that leaked from his eyes and dripped dark onto the card stock like bullet holes. The end of the road, Theo thought, sooner for some than others. 

Because living alone in their apartment for the remainder of his life seemed almost as unbearable as having to come home to his mother's empty bedroom—appearing lived in from afar but was wholly _dead._

* * *

Popper had been scratching against the bathroom door, Theo didn’t know how long. All he could do was focus on the shower head pumping steam into the closed space, his trembling hands as he forced himself to look into the clouded mirror. The distorted face that peered back at him had rings under his eyes and hair so mussed that it made Theo unable remember the last time he combed it. A box cutter—one of many lying about the apartment, taken from Hobie’s shop to unpack—lay parallel with the medicine cabinet, its metal green exterior reminding Theo of the day he found Boris after a decade of silence, sitting cross-legged in that bottle green restaurant booth, convincing him he did not love Kitsey. 

“How can I love anyone.” Theo mumbled, the hopeless cry of a noise coming out weak from his lips. The dog’s insistent barking and padding at the door was the only signal to stop but Theo tuned that out too. 

With his sleeves bare (the reddish umber turtleneck Theo had thrown on, it being the first visible item in their jointed closet) Theo could see every track mark and warped scar on his exposed arms that he tried to forget; memories of a darker self, an even sinister one stood today. One lone, vertical incision—Theo had to remind himself this was like a _procedure_ , an experiment, _not_ an escape—was enough for now as he stared at the weeping crimson slash taking up the entirety of his forearm, the way the blood glimmered in the bathroom light, so intense and much like a bad trip; leaving himself to even question the reality of the situation. It was long, but not that deep. Not deep enough. Tiny drops of red trickled into the sink, crescent moons of blood framed the marble bowl. The pain that Theo experienced was slow moving at first, partly from the dissociation but all the same made him wonder if he’d done it at all correctly—too used to the drugs, he thought—but then the weight of it pounded in his ears like a raging fire. A flash to the blood spots covering Theo’s collar, the motion of flesh and brain matter as Martin’s skull was shattered with a bullet. Moral stains that no amount of effort would ever wipe clean. 

  
Theo did not hear the door open and he hardly heard the still voice: 

_“Okay, Theodore. Let’s just take slow, okay? I want you to look at me. Theo, look.”_ Boris took a hesitant step into the stifling bathroom with an enormous effort to not gape at the wound poring blood _._ Theo turned and everything changed: he was there. Same black curls, fathomless eyes, prominent cheekbones, a new silk button-up. But a few pounds lighter, and holding onto an expression Theo hardly ever saw cross his face: _fear_. He did not enter screaming, waving about his arms like a madman—how he would have handled a situation like this, Theo assumed—but was instead cautious. Boris took another step inside, hands held out as if he were about to confront an injured animal. And then the dam broke. 

“Твоя рука! С любовью, прекрати!” The words flew from Boris’s mouth as Theo stumbled down onto the floor, dizzied and watching the world register in sluggish frames. Boris flung out his arms and held Theo, letting him sob into his chest while his arm ran with blood. Their clothes were soaked in it, the warm sign of life. A few minutes more and Theo would have been gone, blood stagnant and tepid. 

“ _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”_ Theo was stuttering, unable to hold onto a single thought when he knew that Boris was alive. Had he followed through? And Boris finding him dead on the tile? 

“No, _proszę_ just _hush_ for a second.” Boris spit out harshly, but Theo could hear his muffled cries, “We need to get you cleaned up.” 

  
“I’m sorry.” Theo said again once Boris had a firm grip on his sides and set him on the bathroom floor; he didn’t want him to let go. 

“I have you. Is okay, Potter. Let me clean you up.” Boris’s arm was holding onto Theo’s while scrambling for the first aid under the sink. Just like Vegas, on hot nights when Theo woke up screaming in bed: _shhhh, Potter. Is only me. It’s a dream. It’s okay._ Soothing arms holding him down while keeping his mind steady. The same off-putting collectedness, an identical comfort that Theo knew now as an adult was a mask to hide the panic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> words//:  
> -Твоя рука! С любовью, прекрати! : your arm! love, stop!  
> -proszę: please, to ask  
> -miłość: love


	4. adjective, to be true: loyal or faithful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> song: borrowed light - perfume genius 
> 
> “‘Tis true, ‘tis day, what though it be?  
> Oh, wilt thou therefore rise from me?  
> Why should we rise because ‘tis light?  
> Did we lie down because ‘twas night?  
> Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither  
> Should, in spite of light, keep us together.”
> 
> -John Donne

“ _Боже мой_. You are lucky you have me, Theodore. I heard Popchyk! He was barking like fucking crazy person on bathroom door. I thought you were at work, so I go to see Hobart and he tell me you are at home? I think, ‘ _what is this? eh? Theo at home?_ ’ So I came here, am inside calling, ‘ _popper! where are you_?’ and the dog is there! Giving me those eyes that I know too well.” Boris positioned himself closer to Theo on their couch while balancing a plate of takeout on his knees—with a look that made Theo realize he had to eat everything Boris had bought even if his appetite was nonexistent. 

However the general mood of the apartment was much improved, what with his lighthearted tone and arms wrapped around Theo’s shoulders—only after Boris called Gyuri in rapid-fire Russian, where Theo could only discern the phrases “blood” “cut” and a handful of shaky swears. They found out that the wound wasn’t life-threatening, but even still Boris wrapped it in a wasteful amount of gauze, and in a flurry of Ukrainian tossed all of the bladed items—except the chef knives, the expensive ones—outside in the hallway and force fed him a few painkillers—“Let me, I do not trust you. Not now.” Despite the theatric show of disposing the sharp objects and a protective arm kept around Theo, he knew it was only because of his adoration for him: and in doing so it only made his guilt worse. 

“Drugs? I can handle. I have helped you before,” Boris tilted his head to quirk an eyebrow as if to say: _we all remember Amsterdam_ , “But this? This is new for me. Do not ever. _Ever_ scare me like that again, _Гончар_.” Boris prodded Theo’s aching chest with an plastic fork. 

“Now look. You must eat. I am done talking about this. All is to say is that I am here now.” Theo warmed to the feel of Boris’s fingers tracing along his shoulder in an absent pattern. How he missed his touch. 

“Boris, look. I’m sorry-“ Theo began to say but he put a hand to his mouth. 

“ _Nie_. Let us not discuss this. It has been a tired drive for me. Hours in the rain! Terrible. And I missed you, Potter. Left early for you.” Boris rested his head on Theo’s shoulder with closed eyes. Theo clamped down the voices in his mind leading him to the letter that was still in his pocket, making a mental note to toss it. 

  
“You were gone for three weeks.”

“Is a long fucking time!” He brought his head up to press his forehead to Theo’s before inspecting the packaged fork with a sigh. “Potter, you are not a child. Must I expect you to feed yourself? If you do not eat then I am going to bed. Is very late.” He sighed again, much deeper than before—leading Theo to believe that Boris was only making a show of this so they could go to sleep. 

Boris rose from the couch and exposed the familiar—to Theo—pale swath of skin when he stretched. “Fine. Don’t eat. Come with me, when was the last time we were close? I missed our bed, had hard time sleeping without a drink! Or shall we sit here and gaze?” Boris grinned and hoisted Theo from the couch, leaving the heaviness of the hours before behind them.

* * *

“We aren’t going to talk about it?” Theo’s nose was flush with Boris’s bare shoulder, arms reaching out to wrap around the curves of his slim torso in the dark. Grasping for connection; the impulsive throb for him that assaulted Theo ever since Christmas. Ever since Theo knew—even though, he _knew_ all along, from some introspective angle—he had loved him too. Plainly, in words. (“ _Я любил тебя_ , you know that?” Boris’s voice husky with emotion at his flat when he thought Theo was asleep).

Boris made an impatient noise and flipped over to face him. He brushed his lips against Theo’s before mumbling: 

“You’re the one who did this. Is you.” Theo nestled his face to Boris’s open chest and sighed. “I know. I can’t apologize anymore. I messed up.”

“I guess is good thing,” Boris whispered and twined his fingers into Theo’s hair, “Because I know I would not let you out of my sight then. Yes?” 

As if the regret wasn’t enough, Theo thought. Now he was personally responsible for Boris’s obligation of his own well-being. Wasn’t there a way for things to just be okay? So that Boris could go to the grocery store without Theo spiraling into panic at whether or not he would return? Not just because he didn’t fully trust Boris, but because that’s how it always was: _Meet me in the gift shop, okay Puppy? I’ll see you soon._ Among the numerous occasions that Boris himself had also left unannounced. _I will not forget you. Okay, I won’t say no._

“I don’t want you to have to watch over me all the time...” he said. Boris paused, his hands frozen in Theo’s hair. “So you do not want me here, then? You’re hopeless, Птица.” His voice was playful, echoey in the room but the words held a serious bite. 

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t..I want to be _okay_. With this, with us?” Boris moved his hands from his hair onto his shoulders as Theo spoke, his brow furrowed and shadowy with doubt. 

“I do not follow. Are we not together? Here? You are making no sense.” Boris whispered, the liveliness of his previous remarks gone. 

How to explain? “How am I to know where you run off to? If you’re okay? You hardly let me so much as send you a message.” Theo didn’t want to come across in the wrong light, he tried to put away all distress in his words; but even still Boris lifted his head off the pillow with his face leaning toward his in an accusatory way. 

“I do this for your own safety, Potter. If one of Sascha’s guys knew of us, where we _live_?” He mimed a gun to his head, “I’m not joking. And you know I am only trying to make best life for us. But what is this you are saying about that? ‘How are you to know?’ Well, you will just have to trust me, _miłość_. That is the key, no? ‘Loving with the trust?’ Or something?” He scratched the side of his hair. In the low lighting Theo could make out the faint scar of where the bullet grazed Boris’s bicep, the reality of his words going in line with this. Terrifying seconds in the Range Roger with Boris saving face as he yanked the phone cord tighter around his bleeding arm. 

“‘ _Love is trust_.’” Theo corrected him. Boris clapped his hands, “Yes! Right right. Anyway,” He continued, in a manner as if this were a heated debate over a sports team rather than a quiet talk in their bedroom. It was a quality that he adored: his ability to lighten all things. 

“In Amsterdam— _now, don’t give me that look._ Only listen. In Amsterdam, I said that I was coming back, and I did. Had a lot of trouble to do so, but still was there for you—Christmas day, of all days! And to come back and find you in the state you were in? Half-dead in hotel? Theodore, this is like Amsterdam all over again. I do not know how to handle it if I came back an hour later than I did tonight. Lets not have another time like that, okay?” The last sentence felt hugely conclusive on the subject so Theo lay there in his arms, soothed by the silence yet overwrought from his words. 

Boris nestled closer to Theo’s neck in an attempt to sleep while he faced the ceiling, corralling the rampant thoughts. He knew he was right: to love him, he had to let trust overrule all of the panic attacks, all of the irrational fear and compulsions. It had been that way ever since the museum as a last attempt at control. When things began to unravel, Theo’s persistent distrust of others brought him closer to himself—knowing that if he let someone in, it was just another fatality on his hands. Above all else, Theo didn’t want Boris’s safety to be tacked onto his own, he couldn’t handle a new wave of pressure. (“ _Checks and balances. What bullshit, eh?_ ” He had said to Theo in Vegas years ago, returning home with a packet of Government homework that he spent hours poring over with a weary scowl).   


Checks and balances. Symbiosis. The ability to benefit from the other. To Theo trust was interwoven with loyalty, and in truth: was Boris disloyal in cleaning his injury? Taking the time to ensure that the bleeding had stopped, and inspecting every angle of the wound as if it were his own? Even further, was he wrong in finding him draped across the hotel bed as white as a corpse—a scattering of hollow pill bottles and the minibar completely empty; being the one to carry his entire weight across the hall, down two flights of stairs into the wintry morning to make sure Theo was going to come to? Their bond ran deeper, neither could play it off as “close friends.” Did only worldly brothers lie skin to skin? Clutch the other during dreamy desert nights? Or even—Theo was beginning to realize—wait a decade after, on some type of astronomical whim that the pair would incidentally meet once more? It was fate that brought them together; love truly, and nothing more. Theo held onto that belief as he stared at the ceiling, its painted face draped in moonlight from the adjacent window. 

“I know you are still awake, Potter.” His breath tickled against Theo’s chest. “What are you thinking? I can hear your mind from over here.” 

  
Theo brought up a hand to draw his head nearer, not wanting to disrupt the balance that was set into motion. Disturb the peace. 

And then he told him. About the letter crumpled in his pocket; how ashamed he was at the fact of his cowardice in Amsterdam and he vowed to never repeat those mistakes. Boris listened—allowing Theo to speak wholeheartedly, never once did he interrupt like he typically was fond of doing—with a revered stillness, his only input was a gentle hand resting atop Theo’s chest, tracing featherlight Cyrillic words along his skin. 

“I should never have done what I did to you. What I did to everyone who met me. It was irresponsible and stupid of me, thinking I could last as long as I did while lying to myself.” Theo ranted, trying to get all of the words out he’d held onto for the past months as he felt his eyes rim with angry tears.

“Hush, you are working yourself up.” Boris kissed him with full lips tenderly pressed to his mouth and relaxed him in the process. He pulled back with a sigh. “We all make mistakes. This is how it is. But our errors are what make up our life, right? If I hadn’t taken your bird, we probably would have never met again.” 

  
“I just wished I would have said it sooner.” Theo murmured, cheeks burning. He felt like a child again—the bitter evening in the taxi when he memorized the feeling of Boris’s kiss; the raptures of the public action. Nothing like the drunken fucked-up nights Boris never remembered; a line in their connection that neither would cross, never in public.  


“Said _what_?” Theo felt his lips quirk into a smile, still as devilish as when he was a boy. 

“That I love you. I _have_ loved you.” Theo said barely above a whisper. Boris’s fingers stopped tracing. This was nothing like Antwerp—they were both half-awake and drunk when they had told the other, truthfully or not—and because of the fact Theo felt like he must restate it, sober.

Boris was quiet for a moment, making Theo writhe at the vulnerable corner he backed himself into. That’s it? he thought. 

“You are hopeless romantic, Potter. Is what I like about you. But almost thirteen years you wait to tell me this. When I already know. _We_ both know. Would we not be where we are now, if not for love? Faith?” Theo felt him drape a leg lazily across his front in a swish of fabric, cuddling to him like a much younger man; common formalities that went ignored when they were together. Here, as close as possible was where Theo felt the most at ease, like he was at last a normal piece to play in the world. 

“You saved my life that day, and I am eternally grateful. So, in a way, I have saved yours too. Twice. So are we not meant to be lovers, based off this fact alone?” Boris concluded with a slow kiss on his chest. “Now, let’s sleep please? I am afraid Popper will wake us up _Очень рано_.” 

Theo shut his eyes and let Boris dose off with his body halfway on top of him—the rhythmic breathing as well as the warm press of his body was pleasant enough for him to allow it. He fell asleep with the word _soulmate_ at the forefront of his mind: his associations with the galaxy; how the moon and sun worked together to allow life to continue on, a tethering to the other that was everlasting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> words//:   
> -Боже мой: my god  
> -Гончар: Potter  
> -Я любил тебя: i’ve loved you   
> -Птица: bird  
> -Очень рано: very early 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this!! Kudos and comments are always appreciated :))

**Author's Note:**

> words//:
> 
> -птица: bird  
> -moord: death  
> -bloedig: bloodied  
> -moja miłość: my love


End file.
